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Power vacuum in Zimbabwe amid delayed results leaves business, government at a standstill

(AP) - Things
were bad even before Zimbabwe's presidential election, with inflation so high
workers sometimes couldn't afford the bus fare to get to their jobs.

Now, government departments and factories
report workers aren't coming because of uncertainty about the future - and fear
of unrest. It's been 12 days since the vote, with no word on who won, leaving
an entire country wondering who's running things while the opposition and
President Robert Mugabe's regime trade accusations over who is to blame for the
political turmoil.

"We cannot keep our production lines
going in this atmosphere. We need some sort of closure on the elections. Thirty
percent of our employees are staying home," said one Harare executive who
asked not to be identified out of fear of official reprisals.

He said normal contacts between businesses
and government trade and industry officials had come to a standstill.

"It's impossible to get any answers on
day-to-day problems," he said.

The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change says its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the March 29 vote outright.
Projections from independent observers put Tsvangirai ahead, but not far enough
to avoid a runoff, leading to speculation Mugabe is delaying the release of
results so he can orchestrate a second-round victory.

Mugabe dissolved parliament on the eve of
polling. Under the constitution, he remains president until the confirmation of
the election winner and a victor is sworn into office.

Mugabe, though, has made few public
appearances since the vote. In apparent response to the worries over a vacuum,
the state-controlled Herald on Thursday published a statement from Minister of
Information and Publicity Sikhanyiso Ndlovu saying Cabinet ministers will
remain in office until a new Cabinet is announced to allow for the smooth
running of government.

But there has been little evidence of
high-level government decision making. Routine functions of state and local
council authorities have virtually collapsed.

The state security printer told one Harare company it was too busy producing ballot papers for a runoff vote to immediately
issue a certificate of incorporation. Drivers in Harare parked their vehicles
in restricted zones with little fear of being ticketed or prosecuted. Police
checkpoints on main highways were unusually lax.

While police may be neglecting routine
duties, their presence in Harare has been beefed up, with uniformed officers on
most street corners in groups of two and up to eight. That has contributed to
fears of potential unrest.

"It is as if the country is playing
'mahumbwe,'" said Jacob Kufandikwa, a Harare businessman, referring to a
local game in which children playact everyday life.

The power and water outages that had been
symptoms of the economic collapse under Mugabe continued. Shops are emptier
than before the vote. Daily deliveries, however small, of bread and other
basics are intermittent and have ceased altogether in some areas.

Prices have soared in the past week. The
daily Herald went up Thursday from 3 million Zimbabwe dollars to 20 million Zimbabwe dollars. Independent finance houses calculate inflation at around 290,000 percent
compared to the official 100,500 percent.

Chronic milk shortages worsened Thursday as
ruling party militants disrupted milking in the Beatrice dairy area southwest
of Harare, farmers said. Mugabe's party has focused on white farmers,
apparently as part of its runoff campaign, portraying the opposition as poised
to reverse Mugabe's drive to put more land in black hands. Mugabe claimed his
land reform was to benefit poor blacks, but gave most seized farms to
relatives, friends and cronies, and agricultural production has plunged.

The dominant black market exchange rate
dropped to about 36 million Zimbabwe dollars for a single U.S. dollar after
poll results showed Mugabe's party lost control of the parliament in voting
held alongside the presidential vote. But with the stalemate over the
presidential results, the black market rate soared Thursday to 50 million to
one U.S. dollar, the highest so far.

The local stock exchange in Harare also stabilized, then surged again as speculators hedged into safe corporate stock
rather than invest in industry or production, brokers said.

"If Mugabe had won the election, we
would have had the results after a couple of days," said Kufandikwa, the
businessman.

"We all thought the clock was ticking
fast for him to go, but now it has stopped," he said.